History of clothing and textiles

The study of the history of clothing and textiles traces the development, use, and availability of clothing and textiles over human history. Clothing and textiles reflect the materials and technologies available in different civilizations at different times. The variety and distribution of clothing and textiles within a society reveal social customs and culture.

The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of most human societies. There has always been some disagreement among scientists on when humans began wearing clothes, but newer studies from The University of Florida involving the evolution of body lice suggest it started sometime around 170,000 years ago. The results of the UF study show humans started wearing clothes, a technology which allowed them to successfully migrate out of Africa. Anthropologists believe that animal skins and vegetation were adapted into coverings as protection from cold, heat, and rain, especially as humans migrated to new climates.^[1]

Textile history is almost as old as human civilization, and as time has passed, the history of textiles has been more enriched. Silk weaving was introduced to India c. 400 AD, whereas cotton spinning dates back to 3000 BC, also in India.^[2] And a recent archaeological excavation from Neolithic Mehrgarh, Pakistan revealed in the article Analysis of Mineralized Fibres from a Copper Bead, that the cotton fibers were being used as early as the 7th millennium BC.^[3]

Textiles can be felt or spun fibers made into yarn and subsequently netted, looped, knit or woven to make fabrics, which appeared in the Middle East during the late Stone Age.^[4] From ancient times to the present day, methods of textile production have continually evolved, and the choices of textiles available have influenced how people carried their possessions, clothed themselves, and decorated their surroundings.^[5]

Sources available for the study of clothing and textiles include material remains discovered via archaeology; representation of textiles and their manufacture in art; and documents concerning the manufacture, acquisition, use, and trade of fabrics, tools, and finished garments. Scholarship of textile history, especially its earlier stages, is part of material culture studies.